O papel social da arquitetura para Alvaro Siza e Rem Koalhas

Abstract

The user (in all its dimensions) has always been an essential factor of the architectural evolution and maybe the one that determines the value and hierarchy of all the other constraints. Like in all highlights of the History of Architecture, the architect must embrace his/her condition as a citizen and build up a vision of the world and society to guide the search for an appropriate response to the stimuli of the context (social, cultural, political, economical and physical) and to his/her social responsibility. In order to examine how the social role of the architect can be interpreted today, it was analyzed the position of Álvaro Siza and Rem Koolhaas before their responsibility to society. The relevance of a comparative study grounded in these two authors lies in the fact that they represent crucial figures in my academic studies and two key architects of the international Architecture scenery, with fundamentally different approaches, often contradictory. This study was divided into three main segments that constitute a successive approximation to the practice of project and is based on the comparison of the two authors' reflections (own published texts and interviews) on different topics. It was first discussed Siza and Koolhaas' perspective on the object of observation in Architecture, place and society, followed by the consideration of the time factor, present and future, of the project. Next, it was considered the phenomenon of the problem's identification related to the interpretation of the project's conditions, seeking to understand what points of view and challenges, with an intrinsic social concern, are adopted by the two authors. In both cases it was possible to realize the enormous influence of their life and professional context on their notion of the architect's social responsibilities. Within this analysis it was gradually built a social profile for each of the studied authors, in the attempt to understand the similarities and differences between the approaches of Siza and Koolhaas, as well as its complementary character. The weaknesses identified in these two positions were generally related with too narrow interpretations of the discipline, being often diametrically opposed.